Ricardo Ayres Severo wrote:
> That is good news! Is Sun aiming (Open)Solaris for for embedded systems now?
It's always been a desirable focus - part of our original rationale for a
PowerPC port.
There are definitely areas in which OpenSolaris could improve to make it a
better embedded solution, and some of those shortcomings show in some of the
shortcuts taken in the ARM port (most notably their use of statically linked
libraries vs. the dynamic linking used on x86/x64/SPARC.)
Note also that this port is to a single ARM platform; ARM chips vary enough as
does hardware device support that additional work needs to be done if it is to
be a "generic" ARM platform port.
The port is by no means "complete" but it is currently a very usable version of
OpenSolaris running on the particular hardware platform in question.
In this way it's much like the IBM Systemz port, which also lacks support for
several features people have come to expect in Solaris/OpenSolaris as delivered
directly from Sun/the community for x86/x64/SPARC.
We also need to define precisely what a port of OpenSolaris truly means to
people; does it mean a usable functional operating system on which applications
can be run, or is a version of OpenSolaris lacking support for (k)mdb and
DTrace
not truly a Solaris/OpenSolaris system?
The IBM Systemz port lacks ZFS support; does that mean it is even less of a
"true" Solaris/OpenSolaris system?
Semantics to be sure, but valid questions to be asked nevertheless.
So though the addition of the ARM port is very desirable indeed, there is still
lots of work to be done not only on x86/x64/SPARC but on ARM and Systemz as
well
for anyone interested who wishes to contribute.
Not to mention, of course, PPC.
William Kucharski
(NOT speaking for Sun here, just himself.)
